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STELLA THEN AND NOW

by Vanessa Telaro

STELLA’S boyfriend Danny invites her to an upscale restaurant in the West Village.  During dinner, she realizes how happy she is to be his girlfriend. One of the main reasons she feels content is because she knows he likes her company and loves her for who she is. But as the evening unfolds, Danny begins acting strange which makes her wonder if he’s thinking about breaking up with her. He then hails a taxi and tells the driver to let them off at a specific part of Central Park, where he proposes to her. Taken by surprise, she’s not sure how to react. But looking down at the glistening ring, she blurts out, “yes.”

The following morning, she wakes up feeling confused. Has she made the wrong decision? Why couldn’t she have told him she needed time to think about her decision? Either way, it was too late. Her best friend and roommate, Leila, a professional violinist and music teacher at a Brooklyn school, notices the engagement ring on Stella’s finger. Despite being a professional wedding planner, Stella begins to panic. Now that she’s engaged, she begins to analyze love and relationships more than ever before. She wonders how happy her past and current clients truly are, and whether they regretted getting married. Desperate for advice, she asks a married co-worker for advice about marriage. Leila’s affair with a married man makes Stella even more wary about marriage. She dreads the thought of making Danny an unhappy husband, which could lead to his marital infidelity.

Danny, oblivious to Stella’s doubts, confronts her about their wedding plans. Time is moving fast and they have to book a reception hall and a church, not to mention plan the other details. They agree to announce their engagement at Stella’s parents’ house the following Sunday.

Stella realizes that she has exactly six months left until the wedding. Though she could divorce Danny in the case of a miserable marriage, her Catholic guilt doesn’t make divorce seem like an option. Her free-spirited friend Edie sympathizes with her dilemma and gives her advice that only slightly helps. Stella realizes that only she could make a decision she won’t regret.  She finally concludes that the only way she could marry Danny, who she does love, is if she has one more fling. Three lifetime partners including Danny doesn’t feel enough in a city like New York.  Her plan is to sleep with another man, though not just any man, so as to feel like she won’t be “missing out.” Although she is consumed with guilt, she decides to join an online dating site.  Because online dating is new to her, she quickly becomes addicted.

To her delight, she comes across Mike, a musician from California who moved to New York. After exchanging a few messages and chatting secretly with him, he becomes her prospect. She uses a false name, Liz, to protect her identity. As the weeks go by, Stella gets to know him better and agrees to meet for a drink. Stella realizes how afraid she is about meeting Mike, whose band scored a record deal. Even if he’s not ready for a serious relationship, he ends up falling for Stella. She hates herself for being a lying contradiction with a double-life. Whenever Danny calls and shows affection, she feels torn in two.

Because her wedding is fast approaching, she forces herself to make a decision. Once she ends up in Mike’s apartment and the opportunity arises for them to sleep together, she realizes that this is not what she wants and heads back home. Although she has been wanting more sexual experience, sleeping with him would fail to resolve anything. She’s always loved Danny from the start and her obsession with giving up her freedom was holding her back.  Stella gradually starts feeling better, as if she’s on the brink of finding her solution. But because she lied to Mike, she figures he deserves a final apology. They agree to meet for one last drink. Before long, she begins telling Mike the truth about what happened. First things first, she confesses why she lied about her real name. As the evening unfolds, Stella sees Danny walk into the pub but he storms out after getting a glimpse of her with Mike. Paralyzed with dread, she feels too numb to call out after him. 

Stella dashes back to her apartment, where Leila is lying drunk on the sofa. Because she’s drunk and depressed over her break-up with Liam, she doesn’t make much sense. However, Leila does tell her that Danny had stopped by the apartment to surprise Stella and that she’d told him exactly where he could find her. Fuelled with rage, Stella snaps at her best friend for being so reckless and inconsiderate.

Danny ignores Stella’s calls and messages. Thinking that she’s lost Danny forever, she feels like a total failure. She hates how ironic her situation has become. At one point, Stella calls his mother to ask where he is. His mother seems oblivious about the restaurant incident, which suggests Danny hasn’t told her. It turns out that Danny went to Boston to spend time with his dying uncle.

One what feels like a random day, Danny shows up at her doorstep. He looks sullen but also more at peace. He tells her that he had a lot of thinking to do and that they should have a serious discussion over coffee. Although she still loves him very much, Stella fears he might break up with her officially. So she tells him that she’ll only agree to join him if he doesn’t plan on breaking off their relationship.

At the coffee shop in her Brooklyn neighbourhood, Danny asks Stella to give him an honest account of her situation with Mike. Thinking that this might be her last chance to make things right, she realizes she has no choice. She confesses her apprehensions about marriage and monogamy, which had nothing to do with Danny. She also tells him that though she’d come close to it, she didn’t sleep with Mike. Soon after, Danny reveals that up until a few years ago, he also dreaded marriage for the same reasons, which surprises Stella.  However difficult it is, he forgives her. Once Stella forgives herself and Leila for her mistakes, she realizes that she’s finally found inner peace. Armed with a new attitude, she is ready to get married and be the best wife she could be. Marriage isn’t a death sentence, but a worthwhile challenge.

Rating:  Adult, Young Adult

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/BookDetails.asp?BookID=209344&Origine=2104

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LANDSCAPE WITH CLOUDS

By Ellen Farrell

Following the loss of her mother and father Catherine Mortimer is brought up by her uncle and aunt, and when they are killed she devotes herself to constructing a happy life for her small cousin Jamie.  They live in a rented house in Tewkesbury, where she is the accounts manager of a printing firm.

Catherine and Jamie, returning to England from Arcos in the south of Spain where they have been visiting his grandparents, break their journey in Madrid.  They are in the walled garden of the monastery of El Escorial when they meet Henry Galdos Powell, an American boy who has only recently arrived to stay with his father.  His mother is dead.  Henry is lost and frightened, and Catherine and Jamie wait with him on the steps of the Palace until the arrival of his father.  Luis Galdos de Herrera is 37 years old, the  head of a mining corporation and the bitter survivor of a broken marriage.  Catherine is struck by his cool, detached strength, while he notices her devotion to her cousin.  Each makes a profound impression on the other.

Back in England Catherine finds herself without a job and quite unable to meet the costs of keeping Jamie at the school where he has settled down as a weekly boarder.  In the car when his parents were killed, he still suffers nightmares.  Concerned about his state of mind she hides her anxieties, but he is not fooled.  He writes to Henry.   Luis, recognising Catherine’s unremitting drive to protect Jamie and needing someone to take care of his own son, arrives in Tewkesbury to propose that Catherine should return to Spain to take full control of both boys, a job for which she will be well paid.  Further, Henry is to be enrolled in Jamie’s school, and Jamie’s education will be assured.   When everything has been explained, Catherine agrees to the plan.

From the start Luis, through attracted to Catherine, keeps a strained but correct distance, while Catherine, whose world has been turned upside down and who sees that she is dependent on her employer’s good will, emerges from shock-induced compliance fully determined to take for Henry and Jamie every advantage of the undeniably rich culture of her new surroundings.  She finds that the boys are passionately interested in just about everything.  At the house in El Escorial she meets Maria Teresa Perez, the housekeeper, and Julia Baroja, an acquaintance of Luis whom the boys don’t like.  She visits the Galdos family, who receive her with genuine warmth.  Felipe Martinez Galdos, a cousin, invites her to Segovia to meet his sister, an invitation which she accepts.  Her relationship with Luis remains formal, that of employer and employee, but he seems far from pleased when he learns of the outing with Felipe, while Catherine is appalled at his coldness when he tells her more about the death of Henry’s mother.  But Luis is plainly a generous man, and as Catherine learns more and more about him she finds herself more and more overwhelmingly attracted, so much so that she begins to fear having to return to England when the boys start their autumn term.

She is with Luis at a concert in the great basilica of El Escorial when she encounters Bill Jackson, a teacher at Jamie’ school in England.  He calls to see her at the house and meets Consuelo, Felipe’s sister, from whom Catherine learns that Luis is still seeing Julia Baroja.  However when Luis goes out of his way to collect Catherine from one of the railway stations in Madrid he makes very clear his interest in her and his disapproval of her quite innocent relations with Bill and Felipe. They are at the point of declaring their feelings when Henry, Jamie and several small friends are taken ill.   Catherine confesses to the doctor that if Luis were ill she would be quite frantic.

With the children better, Luis tells Catherine he was wrong to have contrived to have her working for him.  He intends taking Henry to America while she makes up her mind what she wants to do . . .

Rating:  Adult, Young Adult

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/BookDetails.asp?BookID=209343&Origine=2104

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FOREVER MINE

By Samantha Istre

Forever Mine is an absorbing tale of a woman who thinks she’s finally found the man of her dreams, only to have her dream shattered by the man of her nightmares.

Reagan Myers is a graduate student studying creative writing at NYU in New York City.  She is working hard as a waitress to put herself through school.  She meets a wonderful man named Presley James who is having dinner at the restaurant where she works.  Their chemistry is instant, but he is there waiting to meet another woman.  Fortunately for Reagan, Presley met his date online and his date isn’t exactly what he expected.  Presley is an up and coming New York attorney who can’t help but fall for Reagan’s beautiful face and heart.

Presley and Reagan begin a steamy affair.  He brings out desire in her that she’s never felt before and he can see forever when he looks at Reagan.  Their love is destined for greatness until a demon from Reagan’s past, Blake Prescott, reaches a new level in his obsession for her.  Blake threatens to destroy the love that Presley and Reagan have created by kidnapping Reagan. 

Can Presley get to her in time, or will Blake succeed in his sinister plot?  Forever Mine takes you on a journey of true love, illicit obsession, and possible redemption.  This novel will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/BookDetails.asp?BookID=182969&Origine=2104

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PERHAPS TOMORROW

by Ellen Farrell

On her arrival at the Abbey Surgery, a general practice in rural Lincolnshire , Arabella Smith, a young GP, meets Clayton Richards, a partner.  Although he appears antagonistic, there is between them, an instant attraction which neither acknowledges to the other.  She is unaware of any reason for his unfriendliness and determines to merit his approval, and in this, because of a series of mishaps, she feels she is only partially successful.

Arabella, extremely efficient and straightforward, is privately warm, gentle and un-pushy.  Earlier, jilted but still pursued by the man who had rejected her, she had gone to work abroad rather than allow herself to be put in a situation where her presence might endanger his marriage.  On her return the situation appeared unchanged and in consequence rather than take up a post near her father house, she has chosen a contract which binds her into working alongside Clayton. 

The practice finds her a tremendous asset because she is unselfconsciously helpful, and for her nothing is too much.  Clayton’s disapproval is unnerving but she is warmly approved of by Helen, the senior partner, Kay, the practice manager, and Jeremy, the GP trainee. Her relationship with Clayton intensifies with each social event and shared case, only to freeze over once more as it appears that she might be in contact with her former fiancé. 

Clayton  appears so analytically critical that Arabella fears that he is deeply suspicious of her intentions, for she sees that his trust, when obtained, is absolute, and that he is a loyal friend, and she appreciates that at work he is a perfectionist, and that while his academic and administrative load is enormous, it does not seem so to him.  He gives his support instantly when her father is taken ill and where her patients are concerned, in particular the young family of Meribel Williams, he is spontaneously helpful. 

But she is never sure of herself where he is concerned and when she discovers his connection with the wife of the man she has being avoiding she is deeply hurt and quite misreads his point of view, while he assumes that she isn’t interested in him and so distances himself. 

It is she who is making the first move when in the stables of his house a near catastrophe pushes all the misunderstandings out of the way as they recognise that what is important is that they should be together forever.

Rating:  All ages

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/BookDetails.asp?BookID=141974&Origine=2104

THE POSY RING

by Ellen Farrell

Following the death of her mother Claire South is cared for by her aunt Fiona.  When Claire’s father also dies Fiona is left destitute, and Claire agrees to marry Grant Wilding, her profligate father’s employer, purely to settle Fiona’s financial future.  Claire, who will be studying abroad, will also have all her college expenses paid.  She will have no further contact with Grant. 

Some years later Fiona, a stained glass specialist, is killed in a traffic accident, and when Claire arrives to settle her affairs she is astonished to meet Grant at a dinner party.  She finds him attractive, intriguing, and he explains their separation in a fashion which satisfies their hosts’ curiosity.  They agree not to talk to others about what had happened between them while Claire attends to Fiona’s business matters with Brian Phillips, Fiona’s assistant, who had escaped the accident with his life. 

From his hospital bed Brian instructs Claire on what should be done. Grant calls by the workshop to leave a list of contact numbers, and Claire, who over the years has come to believe he must have been involved with Fiona, is overcome by a desire to know more about him and decides to find out where he is living even though she does not intend to maintain contact.  It is during a fruitless visit to his house in the village of Kirkham that she finds a posy ring. 

Claire runs Fiona’s business, starts a new job, and comes home one night to Fiona’s small apartment to  find Grant waiting.  He is indirectly an owner of the properties Fiona had rented, and, interested in Claire’s situation, tells her that he was never involved with Fiona in any way other than by helping her just after the death of Claire’s father.  He has found being married useful in keeping his own freedom - an idea which upsets Claire who, becoming increasingly involved, agrees to accompany him to a dinner party arranged by Jane, the daughter of Fiona’s friend Margaret Thompson.           

With Brian still in hospital, it seems that the workshop may fail.  Concerned that Grant should know what is happening Claire visits Kirkham once again, this time successfully finding his house.  He tells had she should do whatever she wishes with the workshop, and arranges to collect her the next day to take her to Jane’s dinner party.  On their return from the dinner party their car skids dangerously.  In the aftermath of the near disaster Grant tells Claire the full story of his involvement in the events immediately her father’s death, for which he feels overwhelmingly responsible.  Claire, distraught, asks him to leave. 

It is Margaret Thompson’s concern about Claire’s state of health that brings them together once again. With Fiona’s lease to be sold, he suggests that Claire move out to Kirkham - he will not be there himself.  He is, however, still at the house when she finds on an upstairs window another instance of the verse written inside the posy ring.  Convinced that the ring must belong to him she tells him of her find, but he dismisses her story and insists that the ring is now hers.

Alone at the Kirkham house she is visited by John Carroll, the lawyer who had arranged the legal framework surrounding her marriage to Grant.  He assumes that they are happily reunited and tells her what he remembers about her ring. 

When Grant returns he fills in the final details of what happened and they are, at last, re-united.

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/BookDetails.asp?BookID=141976&Origine=2104

COME MICHAELMAS

by Ellen Farrell

At Hemingford General Hospital, Alice Bancroft, a ward sister, meets   senior consultant surgeon Lowell North in circumstances which cause her considerable embarrassment:  at a reception on what would have been her wedding day she has with utter seriousness suggested to him that they should start a family together.  Her embarrassment increases when she learns that they are to work together.  Concerned that he is watching her in order to find fault she is determined to give him no cause for complaint, and she is startled by his immediately caring behaviour when she is attacked by a patient.

When she is asked by Olivia, a friend, if she will stay at their house to supervise two visiting children, Alice agrees.  However,  is dismayed to find that the children are the son and daughter of Lowell North.  He, sufficiently distant, offers to sort out a different arrangement.  Alice, hurt and lonely and very susceptible, finds him attractive but combative, and she is at pains to explain that her concern is for the children. The situation brings Alice and Lowell together but the presence of the children keeps a measure of discreet separation between them.

The children are clever and funny and they like Alice and she likes them. There are mishaps, and even a near disaster when Lowell’s small daughter is lost. However, pretty Alice, with her wide interests and her willingness to have a go at practically anything, is entirely reliable, and she and Lowell manage their odd arrangement extremely well.  She learns more about his wife’s death and explains a little about her broken engagement, helps with a birthday regatta and realises that she is deeply in love.

Olivia, now pregnant, returns suddenly.   Alice is no longer needed Alice is no longer needed, and Lowell makes no attempt to suggest otherwise.  Just as she is thinking he may be involved with someone else, he is thinking the same of her.  They quarrel over her supposed preoccupation with her friend Walker and Alice concludes that Lowell has no further interest in her.  However, when she next meets him he says that he would have been more than willing to honour the plan they had discussed at their first meeting.  Alice supposes that he no longer wishes to do so, tells him that she too would have been willing  and immediately leaves.

Reunited at the September Ball but prevented her from saying too much, it is only after the great Michaelmas concert that their misunderstandings about his love for her and her unconditional love for him are finally resolved

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/BookDetails.asp?BookID=80686&Origine=2104

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